1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally directed to methods comprising the use of patterned substrates for the generation of substantially uniform fragments of nucleic acids.
2. Description of Related Art
In most molecular biology work, short DNA fragments are used, free in solution or attached to a surface. In organisms, however, DNA molecules are, in general, very long, flexible, and dynamic. Therefore fragmentation of DNA is an important preparation step in many molecular biology applications (e.g., sequencing). Precise estimates of the insert size in the nucleic acid libraries made during sample preparation is also important for paired-end sequencing analysis as this substantially reduces the computational requirements for mapping sequence fragments back to the genome, or even determining the sequence of the genome de nova.
There exists a need in the art for a simpler method for generating nucleic acid products of substantially uniform length that are more compatible with multi-well plate formats for automation and laboratory information management system (LIMS) tracking.